10 07 29 Master thesis Juliana Leon - e-Waste. This guide

introduction of an Advanced Recycling Fee (ARF) through which the final disposal
costs are transmitted to the consumers at the moment of purchase.
The planned computer regulation would ban the following practices:
• The disposal of computers, peripherals or their components together with
other domestic waste.
• Open-air burning, burying of computer waste.
• To abandon computer waste in the public space such as roads, soils,
swamps, parks, and water bodies.
• To practice the computer dismantling in the public space.
Since hundreds of workers make their living out of informal processes related to
computer recycling, it is essential to promote the integration of the IS in the planned
e-waste management system in order to increase eco-efficiency. The challenge for a
successful inclusion of the IS in the context of e-waste recycling is to prevent
pollution without taking away the income from the working population. This could be
done either by formalizing current IS workers or their activities or by the
implementation of economic incentives that would attempt to redirect the most
problematic flows into the formal e-waste management scheme.
3.5.1 Diversion of IS collected flows into a formal management system
To work with recicladores in the collection phase means that there is easy access to
a very decentralized network of collectors going directly to the source, in this case
consumer households. One way to facilitate the inclusion of recicladores in the future
formal system is to work with waste cooperatives. The material collected by
recicladores will then be bought by the cooperative (on behalf of the PRO) and given
to formal e-waste treatment facilities. Since in Colombia recicladores are mostly
working with human or horse powered transport, it would be worth to implement this
type of collection for households and small companies, while public and private
institutions would use motorized transport. Figure 26 is a schematic representation of
the computer waste and money flows for the system described in this paragraph.
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